Visually Impaired Seek Equity At The Polls

GAINESVILLE — Lenora McGowan has been voting regularly since she came of voting age, but she has never seen any of the ballots.

Blind since birth, the middle-aged McGowan would like the assurance of knowing her votes counted and were cast for her intended candidates.

"I feel I'm at a disadvantage," she said recently at the office of The Independent Florida Alligator, the newspaper where she has worked as a receptionist since 1980.

"How do I know who I voted for?" she asked. "A poll worker accompanies me in the booth. How do I know the person is choosing the candidate I want? I have to take their word for it.

"I would like to have the opportunity to cast a secret vote, like everyone else, without using absentee, without someone taking me to the polls and helping me vote," McGowan said.

She is one of an estimated 240,000 visually impaired voters in Florida, according to advocates for the disabled. State election officials do not formally track the number.

Audio technology is available that allows visually impaired voters to cast ballots without help, but Alachua County, where McGowan votes, and 28 others use AccuVote, an optical-scan system with paper ballots.

The audio equipment "has not been certified by the state," said Beverly Hill, Alachua County supervisor of elections.

The 10-year-old Americans with Disabilities Act requires physically disabled voters to have full access to the polls. In keeping with that, the Florida Legislature passed a law requiring counties to implement the ADA standard by 2004. Polling places would be required to have equipment such as the audio systems under a measure passed by the state House; it still must pass the state Senate.

Ron Labasky, who represents state election officials, said most counties in Florida have an audio presentation for visually impaired voters, but it is lengthy and slow. With all the ballot questions on the Nov. 5 Miami-Dade ballot, the audio presentation takes about 45 minutes, he said.

Palm Beach County elections officials are encouraging visually impaired voters to cast absentee ballots if possible because of the length of the ballot, which could take as long as an hour using the audio equipment. The audio equipment will be available at each polling place and the voter will have a handset with keys in Braille.

The Broward ballot in audio is a 30- to 35-minute process depending on the city, election officials said. Broward uses an audio system with headphone instructions for visually impaired voters.

But disabled voters in Broward last month filed a federal lawsuit citing some of the same concerns McGowan raised. They want to be assured of access to the polls on Nov. 5. The two sides are in negotiations that plaintiffs attorney Stuart Rosenfeldt described as "very constructive."

Thomas Ryan of Tamarac, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said the headphones machine was put in each Broward County polling place in time for the September primary.

But when Ryan and his visually impaired wife showed up to vote, poll workers had no idea how to use the machine, said Ryan, who is president of the Broward chapter of the Federation for the Blind.

Ryan said a voice card was available, but instead of providing ballot instructions, it merely welcomed the voter in Spanish and English. That meant Ryan's only alternative was "to allow someone to read the ballot to me, and then I had to tell them how to vote for me. I don't consider that proper because it wasn't private. And how are you sure the poll worker is casting your ballot correctly?"

Joe Cotter, the Broward County deputy elections supervisor, said what happened to Ryan and others "is a shame." He said election workers are now checking all the audio ballots to make sure they are in proper working order for the Nov. 5 election.

"There will be one at every precinct," Cotter said, "and a technician trained in its use will be on hand." He promised the visually impaired "extra special treatment."

In Gainesville, McGowan said she would vote despite the fiasco of the 2000 election, when black Florida voters were unduly affected by problems that invalidated ballots.

Black voters who feel disenfranchised have vowed to stay away from the polls in the future. But not McGowan.

"As far as the black community is concerned, we really need to be out there voting from the city, county and state," she said. "All the policies that are made affect us, from tearing down houses to widening roads to teachers getting raises and overcrowded classrooms. That affects us."

McGowan doesn't think there will be a repeat of the 2000 election problems.

"I won't be swayed from voting if we don't get our equipment. I'm still going to vote but I'll feel kind of skeptical. I'd like there to be at least one blind-accessible voting booth for the visually impaired."

Gregory Lewis can be reached at glewis@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4203